Functional Mesocrystals

Mesocrystals (mesoscopically structured crystals) are colloidal crystals whose elemental units consist of nanocrystals (within the mesoscale range) that grow all oriented in the same crystallographic direction. Part of the interest in mesocrystals or more precisely in mesocrystal-like nanostructures is to develop synthetic routes able to produce these nanostructures with an open and accessible porosity. The reason is clear porous mesocrystal-like nanostructures can approach the behavior of a single crystal minimizing problems associated with diffusion or surface-related phenomena such as adsorption of reactants.